Friday, November 3, 2006

NYT Can't Resist: Some Of That Old Black Magic Called Spin

I tried very hard to read a piece by John O'Neil in today's New York Times, an article called U.S. Intelligence Chief Visits Baghdad, but the embedded spin made me so dizzy, I almost didn't get past the fourth paragraph.

Try it for yourself and see how far you get:

John D. Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, traveled to Baghdad today to meet with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, as the American military reported the deaths of seven service members and the bodies of 56 Iraqis were found on the streets of the capital.

Mr. Negroponte is the latest in a series of high-ranking American officials to visit Mr. Maliki at a time when tensions between the Bush administration have become increasingly visible.

Did he mean to say "tensions between the Bush administration and the so-called Iraqi government have become increasingly visible"?

Hmmm. Maybe he did.

The article continues:

The seven new American deaths included three soldiers who were killed by a roadside bomb in eastern Baghdad, and three soldiers and a marine killed during fighting in al-Anbar province in the country’s west.

Three paragraphs down, and not spinning too hard, but now we've reached the crunch. Have you got a paper bag on your knee? You may need it. Man, what a dreadful flight!

The region has been at the heart of the Sunni insurgency, and increasingly dangerous for American forces, 38 of whom were killed there in October. In a sign of how deeply the insurgency has become entrenched, the American military announced today that Iraqi forces had arrested eight men in a government building in the troubled city of Falluja after a grenade was hurled at marines. Seven of the men were government employees, and three worked as bodyguards for the city’s mayor, the statement said.

Fortunately for John O'Neil, there is often no semblance of fact-checking where he works. Otherwise, an honest editor would have been forced to rewrite the preceding paragraph as follows:

The region has been at the heart of the Sunni insurgency Iraqi resistance movement, and increasingly dangerous for American forces, 38 of whom were killed there in October. In a sign of how deeply the insurgency has become entrenched vehemently the American occupiers are hated, the American military announced today that Iraqi forces had arrested eight men in a government building in the troubled bombed-out ruin of the former city of Falluja after a grenade was hurled at marines. Seven of the men were government employees, and three worked as bodyguards for the city’s mayor, the statement said.

In a separate indication of how nicely the imposed democracy is coming along,

Officials at Iraqi’s interior ministry said today that 56 bodies had been found in the capital between 6 a.m. Thursday and 6 a.m. today. The Associated Press quoted a police lieutenant who said that all the victims were men between the ages of 20 and 45 who had been bound and tortured.

The report didn't say how many of the 56 had been collaborating with the murderous occupiers, but it is well known (especially by those who read foreign news as well as domestic propaganda) that the surest way to get yourself bound, tortured, killed and found by the side of the road is to help those who carried out the illegal and unprovoked invasion, the subsequent destruction and seemingly-endless occupation of the country.

Calling the violence "sectarian" tends to disguise the extent to which this is all "our" fault. "We" invaded the country on false pretenses. "We" allowed the destruction of every bit of infrastructure available, save for the oil fields. "We" set up, funded, trained, equipped and motivated the death squads that roam the country, and "we" did it in such a way that these roving bands of killers could be described as "sectarian". And now Doctor Death Squad himself has gone back to the scene of the war crime to tell the Iraqis to stop the bloodbath that the Americans started.

These are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph.

Wisdom

And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit. For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.